Ankle Joints Are Beneficial When Optimizing Supported Real-world Bipedal Robot Gaits

TL;DR

This paper investigates how adding an ankle joint to a supported bipedal robot enhances its walking speed and stability, using evolutionary gait optimization in both simulation and real-world experiments.

Contribution

It demonstrates that incorporating an ankle joint significantly improves gait performance in bipedal robots, a novel insight for robotic leg design.

Findings

Ankle joints increase walking speed in supported bipeds.

Evolutionary gait optimization benefits from ankle joint inclusion.

Physical experiments confirm simulation results.

Abstract

Legged robots promise higher versatility and the ability to traverse much more difficult terrains than their wheeled counterparts. Even though the use of legged robots have increased drastically in the last few years, they are still not close to the performance seen from legged animals in nature. Robotic legs are typically fairly simple mechanically, and few feature an ankle joint, even though most land mammals have one. The ankle could be a key to better performance and stability for legged robots, and in this paper we investigate how the use of an ankle in a bipedal robot could improve its performance when combined with evolutionary techniques for gait optimization. Our study shows, both in simulation and physical experiments, that the addition of an ankle joint results in greater walking speeds for a supported bipedal robot.